The Latest: Trump to meet with Australian leader at White House

President Donald Trump is meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House for talks focused on trade and defense. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and the U.S. president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are in Israel Monday to shore up the tenuous ceasefire that’s holding in Gaza, a day after the fragile deal faced its first major flareup with Israel threatening to halt aid transfers after it said Hamas militants had killed two soldiers. More than a week has passed since the truce proposed by Trump began with the aim of ending two years of war.

The Latest:

Oops: Shrapnel damaged CHP vehicle during live-fire show

Metal shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell hit and damaged a California Highway Patrol vehicle as personnel at a U.S. Marine Corps base fired live rounds over a highway — against the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom — during weekend exercises observed by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, state authorities said Sunday. No one was injured.

GOP Rep. Darrell Issa had called it “a spiteful publicity stunt” when Newsom strongly objected to the firing of munitions over Interstate 5 for safety reasons and ordered the highway closed between Los Angeles and San Diego during the drills. A spokesperson for Vance, William Martin, had issued a statement accusing Newsom of misleading the public about the safety risk.

Supreme Court will consider whether people who regularly smoke pot can legally own guns

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will consider whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns, the latest firearm case to come before the court since its 2022 decision expanding gun rights.

Trump’s administration asked the justices to revive a case against a Texas man charged with a felony because he allegedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular pot user. The Republican administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction.

The man’s attorneys argue that the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at least 20% of Americans have tried pot, according to government health data. About half of states legalized recreational marijuana, but it’s still illegal under federal law.

‘No Kings’ rallies energize the opposition movement

The “No Kings” demonstrations that drew crowds to large cities and hundreds of smaller public spaces across the United States is giving protesters hope that resistance is growing to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian rule.

Trump’s Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies, but the crowds were joyful and full of red-white-and-blue costumes, featuring marching bands, demonstrators in inflatable costumes and huge banners with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The People” preamble that people could sign.

People carrying signs with slogans such as “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting” and “Resist Fascism.” It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House.

“Big rallies like this give confidence to people who have been sitting on the sidelines but are ready to speak up,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press.

▶ See images of this latest round of “No Kings” rallies

Trump to meet with Australian prime minister

President Donald Trump is hosting Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese at the White House. The prime minister’s office says their focus will be trade and defense. Up for discussion is AUKUS, a security pact with Australia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom that was signed during the Biden administration.

“Australia and the United States have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in every major conflict for over a century,” Albanese said ahead of the meeting. Australia’s ministers overseeing resources and industry and science are joining him.

Trump to host GOP senators for lunch

The president will have Senate Republicans over for lunch at the newly-renovated Rose Garden patio on Tuesday.

Trump has been fond of hosting aides, lawmakers and other allies at the Rose Garden, which has been paved over, for events.

When the Senate is in session, GOP senators meet every Tuesday (as well as Wednesdays and Thursdays) for lunch to strategize about the week ahead.

The gathering was first reported by Punchbowl News. The lunch was confirmed by a person granted anonymity to speak about plans not yet made public.

— By Seung Min Kim

AP-NORC poll: More Americans are concerned about their chances on the job market

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under Trump, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds. It’s a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.

High prices for groceries, housing and health care persist as a fear for many households, while rising electricity bills and the cost of gas at the pump are also sources of anxiety, according to the survey. Some 47% of U.S. adults are “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a good job if they wanted to, an increase from 37% when the question was last asked in October 2023. And more than half say the cost of grocieries is a “major” source of financial stress.

Read more from the AP-NORC poll

Zelenskyy calls Trump meeting ‘positive’ though he didn’t get Tomahawks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his reportedly tense meeting with Trump on Friday was “positive” — even though he did not secure the Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine — and emphasized what he said is continued American interest in economic deals with Kyiv.

In comments embargoed until Monday morning, Zelenskyy said Trump reneged on the possibility of sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, which would have been a major boost for Kyiv, following his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin hours before the White House meeting.

“In my opinion, he does not want an escalation with the Russians until he meets with them,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Sunday.

According to Zelenskyy, Trump said during their meeting that Putin’s maximalist demand — that Ukraine cede the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — was unchanged. Zelenskyy said Trump ultimately supported a freeze along the current front line, so his overall message “is positive” for Ukraine.

Read more about Trump, Russia and Ukraine

China borrows from the US playbook in trade war

China likes to condemn the United States for extending its arm too far beyond its borders to make demands on non-American companies. But when it sought to hit back at the U.S. interests this month, Beijing did exactly the same.

In expanding export rules on rare earths, Beijing for the first time announced it will require foreign firms to obtain approval from the Chinese government to export magnets containing even tiny amounts of China-originated rare earth materials or produced with Chinese technology.

That means a South Korean smartphone maker must ask for Beijing’s permission to sell the devices to Australia if the phones contain China-originated rare earth materials, said Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative. “This rule gives China control over basically the entire global economy in the technology supply chain,” he said.

Read more about China now using US trade war tactics